Business Associate Addendum Restrictions
Last Updated: April 1, 2025
Last Updated: April 1, 2025
This article provides guidance about the Salesforce HIPAA Business Associate Addendum (“BAA”)1 that Salesforce offers Customers for the HIPAA Covered Services (as defined below). For Customer’s use of a HIPAA Covered Service to be covered by the BAA: (1) Customer and Salesforce must sign a BAA that includes the HIPAA Covered Service; and (2) Customer must comply with the terms of the BAA and this article, to the extent applicable. In the event of a conflict between the BAA and this article2 , the terms of the BAA govern.
When submitting PHI to, or using PHI with, any of the HIPAA Covered Services, Customer must ensure that the submission of PHI to, or use of PHI with, those HIPAA Covered Services is consistent with Salesforce’s: (1) Acceptable Use and External Facing Services Policy; and (2) Artificial Intelligence Acceptable Use Policy (to the extent applicable), each at https://www.salesforce.com/company/legal/agreements/.
Customer is responsible for ensuring the secure transmission of PHI data to and from the HIPAA Covered Services.
Customer must encrypt all PHI: (1) transmitted using the HIPAA Covered Services; and (2) to the extent within Customer’s control, stored in the HIPAA Covered Services. That encryption must be consistent with the Secretary of HHS’s Guidance to Render Unsecured Protected Health Information Unusable, Unreadable, or Indecipherable to Unauthorized Individuals, available at https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/breach-notification/guidance/index.html, as it may be updated from time to time, and as may be made available on any successor or related site designated by HHS
The B2C Commerce Covered Services extend Salesforce-maintained cryptography libraries that enable Customer to encrypt, sign, and generate cryptographically strong tokens and secure random identifiers. Customer must implement cryptography whenever Customer stores, processes, or transmits PHI.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Commerce Cloud Einstein (including services formerly branded by Demandware as Predictive Email) is not covered by the BAA.
Einstein Personalization is not intended to be used, and Customer may not be use the Einstein Services: (1) as a substitute for professional medical or healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment; (2) as a medical device, software, or software function for the direct diagnosis of, or in the direct mitigation, treatment, or prevention of, a disease or other condition; or (3) to infer, predict or interpret an individual's medical or health diagnosis, condition, status, program eligibility, or outcome.
To the extent within Customer’s control, Customer must enable, maintain, and use Data Masking in the Einstein Trust Layer configuration for Customer’s HIPAA Covered Services.
The Einstein Services are not intended to be used, and Customer may not use the Einstein Services: (1) as a substitute for professional medical or healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment; (2) as a medical device, software, or software function for the direct diagnosis of, or in the direct mitigation, treatment, or prevention of, a disease or other condition; or (3) to infer, predict or interpret an individual's medical or health diagnosis, condition, status, program eligibility, or outcome.
With respect to Einstein Bots, Customer may not: (a) submit PHI to, or use PHI in, any utterance records; or (b) enable any Answer Automation or Input Recommender features or functionality of Einstein Bots that could result in the submission or use of PHI therein.
With respect to Einstein GPT for Commerce, Einstein GPT for Sales, and Einstein GPT for Service, Customer is responsible for ensuring that its use of any third-party Large Language Model (LLM) service provider in conjunction with those Services meets HIPAA requirements.
With respect to Agentforce Services and Prompt Builder and to the extent within Customer’s control, Customer must enable, maintain, and use Data Masking in the Einstein Trust Layer configuration for Customer’s HIPAA Covered Services.
To the extent Customer uses PHI obtained from a third-party or external data source in conjunction with Digital Process Automation, Customer is responsible for ensuring its acquisition and use thereof meets HIPAA requirements.
If Customer elects to configure a network connection that terminates outside of the Salesforce Government Cloud Plus environment, Salesforce assumes no responsibility to protect the Customer-configured connection. If Customer configures PHI to be transmitted over a Customer initiated connection, the Customer is responsible for ensuring the connection uses TLS encryption.
The following restrictions apply to the relevant Heroku Services:
In a Private Space, Heroku applications are able to communicate with each other over the local dyno network. If Customer transmits PHI over the local dyno network in a Private Space, Customer must encrypt the PHI in transit.
PHI may be stored, processed, and transmitted within Apache Kafka running in a Shield Private Space with two exclusions: Customer may not use PHI as or in any: (1) Topic Name, or (2) Access Control List (ACL).
To the extent Customer includes PHI in its log data, Customer must explicitly enable the Private Space Logging or use equivalent encryption functionality for all log data. Logging in a Shield Private Space can be configured in two ways: Private Space Logging or standard app-level logging. If Customer has not enabled Private Space Logging, Customer must use Shield Private Space standard app-level logging.
The following restrictions apply to the relevant Intelligence service:
Unsecured connections such as HTTP must not be used. When using email to transmit PHI to Intelligence, the email provider must support and use encryption.
PHI must not be transmitted to Intelligence with FTP or with the “control+shift” connector. Connectors downloaded from the marketplace from any vendor other than Intelligence must not be used to transmit PHI. If Customer writes its own custom connector, the connector must only transmit PHI through secure HTTPS calls.
When using the python retrieval method, Customer must not insert any python code which contains “http” or other unsecured calls. When PHI is connected or retrieved live through direct connect to a database using a connection string, SSL must be stated.
Intelligent Document Reader is not intended to be used, and Customer may not use Intelligent Form Reader: (1) as a substitute for professional medical or healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment; (2) as a medical device, software, or software function for the direct diagnosis of, or in the direct mitigation, treatment, or prevention of, a disease or other condition; or (3) to infer, predict or interpret an individual's medical or health diagnosis, condition, status, or outcome.
The Discover feature included with Lightning Platform is not covered by the BAA. Accordingly, Customer may not enable the Discover feature or its functionality in any manner that could result in the submission or use of PHI therein.
Customer is responsible for ensuring that its use of Loyalty Management for healthcare-related activities meets all applicable government-sponsored health program laws and regulations.
Customer is responsible for ensuring that its use of Marketing Cloud Personalization in connection with any marketing activities that involve PHI meets HIPAA requirements. To the extent that Customer uses PHI obtained from a third-party or external data source in conjunction with Marketing Cloud Personalization, Customer is responsible for ensuring its acquisition and use thereof meets HIPAA requirements.
The Marketing Cloud Einstein features included with Marketing Cloud Growth are not covered by the BAA. Accordingly, Customer may not enable any Marketing Cloud Einstein features or functionality that could result in the submission or use of PHI therein.
Customer must enable, maintain, and utilize MuleSoft Services features to implement cryptography and PHI data minimization whenever Customer stores, processes, or transmits PHI. In addition, Customer is responsible for the design, integration, and administration of all connections, communications, and use of Customer’s PHI by any third party individual, entity, technology, or service occurring during Customer’s utilization of MuleSoft Services.
Bring Your Own Telephony (BYOT)-based implementations of Service Cloud Voice must be manually configured by Customer. Customer is responsible for ensuring that its use of any third-party telephony service in conjunction with Service Cloud Voice meets HIPAA requirements.
Customer is responsible for ensuring that its use of any third-party electronic signature service in conjunction with Salesforce Contracts meets HIPAA requirements.
Prerequisites to BAA Coverage
1. Enterprise-Level Slack Plan. Customer must purchase an Enterprise-Level Slack plan. (Please note that GovGrid plans are not currently eligible for BAA coverage.)
2. Advance Notice to Slack of Permitted Organizations or Workspaces or Purchase of the “Slack - HIPAA Enabled” SKU. To ensure workspaces are properly provisioned and supported, Slack must be made aware in advance of organizations or workspaces in which Customer intends to submit, collect, or use PHI.
For workspaces provisioned before March 20, 2023, Customer must have notified Slack in advance in writing (email ok) of the name and URL of each organization or workspace with which Customer intended to submit, collect, or use PHI and received confirmation in writing (email ok) that HIPAA readiness had been enabled.
On or after March 20, 2023, Customer must purchase the “Slack - HIPAA Enabled” SKU, along with a covered enterprise plan.
Please note: For Enterprise Grid customers, Slack will enable the backend HIPAA flag for all workspaces within the designated organization, including new workspaces later created within that organization. BAA coverage will NOT automatically extend to every organization or workspace owned by a given Customer, only those appropriately designated as being HIPAA-enabled.
Required Slack Limitations for PHI
By purchasing Slack, Customer has available the full capabilities of the purchased Slack services. However, if Customer or Customer’s users transmit, upload, or communicate about PHI through the Slack services, Customer must comply with the following limitations:
1. Slack Users. The Slack services are designed for work collaboration but may not be used to communicate with patients, plan members, or their families or employers. Patients, plan members, and their families or employers may not be added as users or guests to any Slack workspaces or channels.
2. PHI-Prohibited Slack Fields. Users may not include PHI in any of the following:
Users may include PHI in the contents of messages, files, huddles, video and audio clips, and data submitted to custom apps built by Customer to run on Slack Infrastructure.
3. Support Requests. When initiating a support request through any means—including through a “/feedback” command in a Slack channel, through the Slack website “Contact Us” page, or through Slack’s Live Chat offering—users must not include any PHI in the support request or attach any screenshots or documents that include PHI.
4. Email Ingestion. Users that transmit or receive any PHI by email must not use Slack’s native email ingestion capabilities to forward emails into Slack.
5. Slack Connect. Slack Connect allows users from different companies to communicate and collaborate right in Slack. If Customer uses Slack Connect to communicate between two separate organizations, Customer must ensure that Customer has the appropriate permissions, where necessary, to share PHI with such recipients and that such communications comply with applicable legal requirements.
Slack Guide for HIPAA Entities
Customer must also review and appropriately inform its users regarding the Slack Guide for HIPAA Entities, as updated from time to time. It is Customer’s responsibility to ensure that the configuration limitations included within the Slack Guide for HIPAA Entities work with Customer’s desired use of the product.
Tableau Cloud
Tableau Cloud is not intended to be used, and Customer may not use Tableau Cloud: (1) as a substitute for professional medical or healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment; (2) as a medical device, software, or software function for the direct diagnosis of, or in the direct mitigation, treatment, or prevention of, a disease or other condition; or (3) to infer, predict, or interpret an individual's medical or health diagnosis, condition, status, program eligibility, or outcome.
With respect to Tableau Agent and to the extent within Customer’s control, Customer must enable, maintain, and use Data Masking in the Einstein Trust Layer configuration for Customer’s HIPAA Covered Services.
Customers may not use any Tableau Cloud “Broadcast” features or similar functionality in conjunction with Tableau Public or any other public-facing forum service, in a manner that could result in the publication or disclosure of data visualizations and/or their underlying workbooks, which may contain or be derived from PHI..
In addition, Tableau Bridge, Tableau Data Connect, and Tableau Server are not covered by the BAA.
The online services listed below provided to Customer by SFDC comprise the “HIPAA Covered Services”; provided, however, that the HIPAA Covered Services do not include any portion of such Services that are deployed on Customer’s premises. Unless specifically noted below, the HIPAA Covered Services include the online services when operating on Salesforce first party infrastructure, Hyperforce (formerly Salesforce Unified Cloud) infrastructure, or other public cloud infrastructure.
B2B Commerce (formerly branded as CloudCraze)
B2B2C Commerce
B2C Commerce Services³ presently branded as Commerce Cloud Digital (B2C Commerce GMV or B2C Commerce PPO)
Chatter
CRM Analytics (formerly branded as Tableau CRM)
Customer Data Cloud (also presently branded as Salesforce Data Cloud)
Customer Data Platform (formerly branded as Salesforce CDP)
Database.com
Digital Process Automation3 (including Decision Tables, Data Processing Engine, Omnistudio, Business Rules Engine, Client-Side Document Generation, and Server-Side Document Generation)
Einstein Services³ presently branded as:
Einstein Personalization
Emergency Program Management
Employee Health Verification package (a feature of Employee Productivity)
Experience Cloud (formerly branded as Community Cloud)
Financial Services Cloud
Government Cloud Plus3 infrastructure environment
Headless Browser Service
Health Cloud
Heroku Services3 presently branded as:
Intelligence Services³ presently branded as:
Intelligent Document Reader³
IoT Explorer
Life Sciences Cloud
Lightning B2B Commerce
Lightning Platform (including Archive, Backup & Recover, Force.com, Salesforce Backup, and Salesforce Surveys)
Loyalty Management³
Marketing Cloud Engagement (formerly branded as ExactTarget)
Marketing Cloud Personalization³ (formerly branded as Interaction Studio) (exclusive of Interaction Studio (Legacy)), but only when provisioned on infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services in its capacity as an SFDC Subcontractor
Marketing Cloud Growth³
Messaging for In-App and Web
Mulesoft Services³ presently branded as:
Nonprofit Cloud Services presently branded as:
Privacy Center
Quip Services presently branded as:
Sales Cloud
Salesforce Contracts³
Salesforce Maps Services presently branded as:
Salesforce Mobile App
Salesforce Order Management
Salesforce Payments
Salesforce Private Connect
Salesforce Shield
Salesforce Slack Integration Proxy
Service Cloud (including Field Service (formerly branded as Field Service Lightning) and Live Agent)
Service Cloud Voice³, but only when provisioned on Salesforce first party infrastructure and Hyperforce infrastructure
Site.com
Slack Enterprise Plans³ (excluding GovGrid plans), but only once confirmed by Slack to be HIPAA-enabled
Tableau Cloud³
Unified Messaging
Vlocity Health package
1References to the BAA are deemed to include any prior BAA Amendment entered into by Customer, unless such BAA Amendment has been superseded or replaced.
2This article supersedes and replaces any prior BAA restrictions article(s) to which Customer’s use of any HIPAA Covered Services was subject.
3 See Service-Specific Restrictions.
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